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August 14, 2022 4:00 am
If you listen to Truth for Life during the week.
You know, we are currently in a series featuring some of the most popular messages from the past 12 months. It's a series we call encore 2022 and on today's weekend program will hear one of our encore messages entitled the resurrection in this message. Alister outlines the reality of Jesus resurrection and challenges us to tell others about were in Luke chapter 24. Why did Christianity and arthritis take the shape it did because of the fact of the resurrection on that alternatives. Yes, there certainly are. Should we pay attention to them while it's good to know them.
If were going to engage our friends and neighbors in the in this matter that are a number of facts we need to keep in mind we've mentioned one or two let me just run through them for you.
Fact number one the empty tomb.
Everyone is agreed that this tomb somehow or another was empty that this stone had been rolled away even with all of the angelic stuff on the women and so on. Colombo has to go and be confronted by the empty tomb is in there with his raincoat and the lotion root and he dislocated his tomb is empty right.
We need an explanation for the empty tomb here is presenting evidence.
This is a fact. This is not a fiction. We are all agreed empty tomb. Secondly, fact the origin and existence of the church is simply to reiterate in brevity what we just pointed out choirboys in our church.
Why did these individuals who were sad, sorrowful, defeated, confused, fed up.
Why were the all of a sudden the products of July and hope in power and animation. Why did you begin to gather with one another and to sing songs of praise to this this Christ why did it begin to tell others about this Jesus what he going to do with that fact. Thirdly, the fact of the New Testament.
Why do we have a New Testament. Why would anybody take the time to write down this material in such a way as it is done when it not for the fact that the Messiah was really a lie. I mean who needs a story about somebody who made these fantastic claims but yet like many others, furious messiahs that had been around the time he finally came to a crashing halt and was buried in a tomb. What we do with the fact of the New Testament. How do we explain why it was that Luke and others picked up their pens and wrote this material down because they wanted to foist a great lie on their immediate readers and on subsequent history because they had a desire to create this bizarre notion that would be foisted down through retirement and throughout the ages, or did they pick up their pens because they were compelled to pick up their pens. They were moved as two Timothy says or is first Peter says that they were moved by the Holy Spirit and the date and they wrote as they were led along.
We have to do something with last night I had a tangential thought. I just want to mention to you because as I was reading as I was going through this in my mind I was reminded again of the da Vinci code that some of you have been reading and there is where it really hits and hits the high seas is in chapter 55 with his eyes and just about right in the right in the middle of the book is via Reddit will know those of you who haven't II can take time to tell you it's a bit of a good yarn that begins in their all dealing with the stuff in there running away in an armored car.
The offender's hand on the front it scraping on the ground. The police were chasing them and eventually they find safety in the home of a chap called Sir Lee teaming Sir Lee teaming a fairly erudite, wealthy and intellectual soul as the writer portrays him, and then just as you return from page 229 to 230 as a normal casual reader, your hit right between the eyes by this amazing diatribe that takes on New Testament Christianity completely from nowhere. Now read your little bit.
Sophie sends the rising air of academic anticipation in both her male companion at a sense of academic anticipation not silly boy anticipation not dumb dumb anticipation, but academic anticipation and after all, this is Sir Lee teaming.
This is not Billy Jenkins you know from 43 cars. Few gardeners know we want this picture of someone of significance and erudition and were to fully understand the Grail teaming continued.
We must fully understand the Bible how well do you know the New Testament. He asked Sophie shrugged not at all really. I was raised by a man who worshiped Leonardo da Vinci Stephen Lu both startled and pleased and enlighten so superb then you must be aware that Leonardo was one of the keepers of the secret of the holy Grail, and he had clues in his art.
Robert told me as much. Yes and da Vinci's views on the New Testament.
I have no idea returns to Robert and he says Robert just made a book down there on the bottom shelf in and give me a couple of quotes from the flyleaf from da Vinci court number one.
Many have made a trade of delusions and false miracles deceiving the stupid multitude. Here's another teething said, pointing to a different quote blinding ignorance does misleaders or wretched mortals. Open your eyes. Sophie felt a little chill da Vinci's talking about the Bible, teaming nod. Leonardo's feelings about the Bible relate directly to the holy Grail. In fact, da Vinci painted the true holy Grail, which I will show you momentarily before us. We must speak of the people and everything you need to know about the Bible can be summed up by the great Cannon Dr. Martin Percy Stephen cleared his throat and declared the Bible did not arrive by fax from heaven. I beg your pardon. The Bible is a product of man, my dear, not of God, the Bible did not fall magically from the clouds and this is really really clever because that is exactly true. The Bible did not fall magically from the clouds so I said to myself last night and is months now since I read this book. I said who is Cannon Dr. Martin Percy real or fictitious online find them real in the University system at the highest level in England self avowed liberal theologian, the proponent of standard views of the New Testament which every theological student knows you, not theological students. Therefore, you don't know this. You didn't do these studies let me tell you when you go to school to learn this stuff that after the disciples had penned far as the New Testament, there were all kinds of knockoff copies. The argument of liberal scholarship is that the New Testament borrowed it from the Gnostics, but if you look carefully, you will discover that if anybody's doing any borrowing. It is the Gnostics that are borrowing from the New Testament, but they don't want that story out. Incidentally, I found the quote gives the quote here, the Bible did not arrive.
I arrived by. Thanks from heaven is actually is in the Promethean humanist argument is by my Saturday night underwriting the Vatican's announced plans to rewrite the Bible, adding information from the Dead Sea Scrolls about the life and times of Jesus as a political activist. This won't cause consternation among believers around the world, says one biblical scholar, none other than our dear Dr. Martin, Percy why because there is never been a settled definitive version of the Bible that here comes the quote only fundamentalists think it came in a thanks from heaven know we don't and fight. We know it didn't. We know that the Scriptures were not written by the church. Therefore, the church is no right to add to them or to redefine that the Scriptures were written as men were moved, carried along by the Holy Spirit that the New Testament that we have is the product of divine human interaction. It is mysterious.
It is compelling and yet here right in the heart of this book is picked up and it is kicked completely out of the stadium know why take all this time I know how this goes Google go to the Tuesday I like the da Vinci sermon, which is such a shame because this is in the da Vinci sermon on just this is a tangential reference, but unless you are living in another world for me.
You are running across people keep asking you about this and some of them are folks here from Parkside what are we supposed to do with this. Don't be unsettled by this is standard liberal hogwash is routine is taught routinely in theological seminaries is founded and grounded in the German schools of theology at the turn of the 19th into the 20th century.
There is nothing new under the sun but the intriguing thing is that here in page 255 of one of the New York Times bestsellers. Dan Brown, for whatever reason has determined that he's going to help to dismantle the notion that underlying the New Testament documents.
There is nothing other than a resurrected Christ. Our time is gone but the other two points would be that the presence of communion. Actually, the presence of baptism and communion you make sense of baptism and communion, especially the joyous way in which they engaged in a how do you explain how they went out there and said curiosities are instead of Kaiser curiosities, Caesar is Lord. They went out and they said that that the Lord was the Lord of the world that it was QDR's cause mood. Why, if he wasn't and what I just change lives by the conversion of Saul of Tarsus and what about the conversion of all the souls of Tarsus after him. Why did Christianity emerge as it did by the dictatorship. It did because Satan comes the answer of the disciples because Jesus is resurrected. Are there alternative explanations only as there are lots of them. We should be unsettled by that we should assume it. There will always be knockoffs. Are there certain facts that need to be considered.
Yes, these amongst others, and finally, what then are we to do is we go back to work and school and play tomorrow. Well we got a story to tell their story to tell's wonderful story and at this point in history. Apparently people really like stories storybooks are selling well. So then tell them a story. Don't just throw big lumps of the Bible let them start firing your verses at the Maya got a Tommy gun full of a few text that you learn to team me me me here come the Christian try that Friday. There's a reason why men are our friends thing that we don't know what were talking about because we don't know what were talking about. Is it were like were like encyclopedia salesman that have been trained along a certain line if anybody gets us off the track. We have to start at the very beginning the presentation again why good on where we are in the presentation.
We have a story to tell the story is fantastic Easter morning Easter morning was the dawn was the birthday of God's new world of time to work this out for you, but Genesis 1 and Luke and he saw that everything it made was good and and it was evening and morning it was the sixth day and on the seventh day he rested from the work of creation what you have here six day it is finished the work of redemption is complete seventh day rest first day of the week. First day of the new world first day of the transformed existence first day of the reality of the power of the Messiah is on that Easter. Incidentally I missed one of my points. The change from Saturday to Sunday is a fact to be reckoned with.
This what all these Jews doing this doing this on the first day of the week during the realize you have in brother for not having read the 10 Commandments. Don't you know the law of God are you supposed to be doing this. What you doing here this is the first day of the week why you doing this all he tells is in here he says that the reason that everybody's doing this is because Constantine decided that the day of worship should be the day of the worship of the sun as UN and that everybody's sins has been guilty of sun worshiping and being hoodwinked into it by Constantine in the Roman Catholic Church. That is, of course, the same story that comes from Seventh-day Adventist to write to me on a weekly basis to say what a dreadful rascal. I am to be leaving all you people into worship on the first day of the week when I fired my head on the Square I would know that there the worship that should be observed on the seventh day because after all they say the only reason this is happened is, according to Dan Brown the same exact same thing. Because of Constantine, and who needs the listener Constantine exactly he's good but not great. The fact of the matter is they were worshiping on the first day of the week long before Constantine and Constantine just put it together for the sake of the calendar. Why would he do this because it was the first day of the new world. They were up and tense bursting forth in glorious day know this is what we got to get to for them to do the job is going to take far more than proof texts is to demand much more of is then simply he lives within my heart.
No first century Jew would understand message Messiah ship in relationship to he lives within my heart. Remember what they want they want to rebuild the temple, the one the pagans ditch and he wanted justice, sir. In other words, it was a far more comprehensive thing and my loved ones. It is a far more comprehensive thing. There are plenty of people will tell you about individuals that live in our hearts, not only Jesus but all kinds of other people tell you live in their hearts. Some will even tell you they sold their souls to the devil lives in their heart. Is that not an experience that is really as it is a continuing experience but the experience of Christ in us is built upon an historic moment in time. It is the history of the event.
That gives credence to the expedients it is not the expedience that is read back to create the event. So we must go out go out to a world in which meaning is lost about a world in which people don't know who they are road into a world where the idea of the story is completely gone. Go back into a world which is just a big's Jew out.
They are being eaten by everybody, a cultural, economic, moral, religious, spiritualists choose nobody knows what it means nobody knows what should mean nobody thinks it should mean adding adult in the world is just poke around in this you will probably find something you like, you probably find something to your liking. Find a little religious morsel there might be some big bits in there.
Would you like a little rice with that that's the world we live not a world of 100 years ago the world 100 years ago you could go into Starbucks or its equivalent. You could go down to the local store and you can sit on the porch and you could talk with someone about God, about sin, about judgment about heaven and about hell and you would have within the framework of that story points of reference to which you could make to which you could refer, and from which you could extrapolate and teach, not today. There is no story. There is no story.
I mean look at the cultural picture of our day is the personal stereo is the iPod stick it in your ears, download the MP3 and live your own reality in a world of conflicting realities is a perfect picture now are we going to get over what I said here again is going to demand is going to demand that I live out the resurrection life. I asked myself this we do. I live out the resurrection life lighted is an easier question to say have I preach the resurrection life that's that's not difficult. I got I got I did that. The question I asked myself was to what degree do I live out the resurrection life in a world of suspicion and mistrust and fear and doubt how much of my life is marked by joy and hope and peace and genuine love. And what about our congregation. A congregation like this this morning that represents music and art and philosophy and education medicine in poetry and politics and theology congregation like ours, which is the opportunity now to walk out onto the leading edge of culture or perhaps to stand where we've always stood on the sidelines shouting the yards about everything is going crazy and wrong and bad and was like this in the good old days going to take a tremendous amount if we going to do this and do it right living on the resurrection life in a way that will not only challenge but charm charm surrounding charming about our representation of Christ Evangelical Christianity is go to the challenge. You hear it all the time.
Where challenging the views on same-sex relationships and justifiably so. Where challenging the view on this. Where challenging the view on that we are holding the line for this we are doing the line for that. Yes, very good. All agreed.
I signed up for every part of it. But here's the issue, who is doing the stuff with the AIDS victims in the hospital who is doing the stop with the orphans who is in a culture of mistrust displaying this amazing love of Christ that reaches into people whose lives are despairing, unrivaled, broken, shattered and ended and communicating the fact that in this messianic story. There is a whole new way of viewing the world and doing it with joy and with gentleness, with humor with good judgment, with wisdom, yes, and with genuine respect is not enough for us to circle the wagons that's too easy you know let's all get together circle the wagons affirm what we believe, close down the options become like the cocoon ran community in the first century go up in the hills and hiding from it all and hold the Jesus will come back soon if the first disciples had done that we'd never be here to see the benediction and if not now, when getting we should do this and if not ours.
Things going to do this a couple of compelling and convicting questions from Alastair big today on Truth for Life weekend.
Keep listening.
Alastair will be back in just a minute to close today's program. If you'd like to share the gospel with others, but you're not sure how to begin, let me encourage you to visit the learn more page on our website. There are a couple of free videos there. Each of them less than 10 minutes in length there perfect for downloading to share with friends or to watch to get tips on how to talk to others you can watch or share one or both of these videos as often as you'd like. Just visit Truth for Life.org/learn more and this is the last week and will be talking about the book, read this first. This is a book that will help you maximize your Bible study by walking you through some simple guidelines to help you get to the heart of what God is saying in his word. The book is perfect for sharing with friends who may be new to reading the Bible. Find out more about the book, read this first when you visit our website@truthforlife.org and if you're wondering where to get started practicing some of the tools that are outlined in the book, read this first let me suggest the Bible reading plan that's available from Truth for Life. This is a one year guide that will take you through the Old Testament and the New Testament in 12 months.
You can download the Bible reading plan for free or there's a booklet that contains the plan, you can order that from us the Truth for Life.org/store.
Now, here is Alastair closed with prayer God our father send is out now with your blessing in the power of the risen Christ so that our lives may challenge and charm that in every avenue of life in the Academy at the workbench in the home and recreation in art and philosophy in manufacturing and business, the reality of the risen Christ may so permeate all that we aren't all that we do that we may be able to tell people the good news of the kingdom of God has come, and may grace, mercy, and peace from the Father and the son and the Holy Spirit rest upon and remain with each one today and forever more.
Amen Bob Lapine thanks for listing the fourth commandment calls us to keep the Sabbath holy that even possible or necessary in our world today. Find out how relevant God's ancient law really is. When you join us next weekend. The Bible teaching of Alastair big is furnished by Truth for Life Learning is for Living